Children of Hades

         The air ripped from her lungs in long ragged breaths, the sound a horrible parody in her ears. Her eyes stung with a disgusting mixture of blood, sweat and tears, blurring her vision as she ran, wildly crashing through the surrounding brush. Low hanging branches from towering trees reached out to grab at the suit of armour that encased her form, or to rip at her exposed face.
    With a grunt, she fell to the ground, tripped by a hidden root. She landed hard, the breath knocked from her lungs, but she scrambled to her feet even as she tried desperately to suck in air. She had to keep going, had to get away, had to tell the others.
    She pushed on, ignoring her screaming legs, her shrieking muscles. She pumped her arms and legs as fast as they would go, her heart racing in her chest, faster than it ever had before. Blind terror drove her on; a fear so profound, it had no name.
    Vaguely, she recognised the edge of the camp's perimeter. She saw, from the corner of her eye, a private, weapon raised towards her, but she didn't stop, didn't even slow.
    She ran, her breathing now coming in laboured gasps, her throat raw. She ran through the camp, others jumping out of her way, their expressions of shock and horror lost on her fear-locked mind.
    "Lieutenant!" she shrieked. Distantly, a part of her mind noted she sounded rather hysterical and panicked. "Lieutenant!" she said again, louder this time, and more shrill than the first.
    Up ahead, she saw someone turn to look in her direction. Still running, she altered her course and aimed for the individual. As she approached, he removed his helmet and had passed it to the person beside him by the time she skidded to halt before him. By now she had regained enough control of herself that she did not throw herself on the man.
    "Holy son of -"
    "Belay that, Corporal," said the Lieutenant to the man beside him.
    The Lieutenant’s eyes narrowed as he looked over her. She was doubled over, looking up at him, trying to force some oxygen back into her starved body. Covered in blood, her hair was matted and stuck to her face, with sweat dripping from her brow and nose. She could smell the stench of the drying blood, ichor and bodily fluids as they stuck to her suit, turning her stomach and making her retch.
    "Lieutenant," she managed. "Call... for evac. Must... get away," she forced out between huge gulps of air.
    Her head began to swim from the effort of talking and breathing and she swayed dangerously. The Lieutenant took a step forward, taking her by the arm and steadying her.
    "Hold on, Sergeant,” he said. “Slow down. What happened to you? Where is your unit?"
    She shook her head, and pulled away from him. Didn't he understand? They had to leave. Now!
    "Gone,” she croaked. “All gone." Her throat was raw from the running and screaming. "We have to leave. Now," she said, finally managing to catch enough breath to speak properly.
    The Lieutenant frowned and said, "'Gone'? What do you mean 'gone'?"
    Something snapped inside her, the last vestiges of control vanishing.
    "Don't you understand!?” she shrieked. “They’re dead, all dead! We have to get out of here! They're coming, I can feel them coming!"
    She reached out as she spoke and grabbed the Lieutenant by the arm with both hands, looking up into his face, pleading with him.
    "Sergeant, you will control yourself!” the Lieutenant barked, ripping his arm from her grasp. “Immediately, or, so help me, I'll-"
    Someone screamed in the night. She whipped round to face the brush, her breath catching in her throat, her blood freezing, her heart stopped.
    "What in the hells was that?" asked the Corporal from beside the Lieutenant.
    She knew what it was, knew what it meant. But she couldn't move, couldn't speak, couldn't breathe. They were here.
    "Perimeter, do you see anything out there?" the Lieutenant said into his comm. “Perimeter?" he repeated, swearing when they failed to respond.
    A shriek ripped through the air, an inhuman sound so alien as to be indescribable. It had no name, no words to attach to it. But she knew what it was and, at its sound, a low, feral moan escaped her and she slipped to the ground, her legs suddenly slack.
    All around her, Marines began to nervously check their equipment, their eyes searching the forest around them. Most had slipped their helmets on, their suits now hermetically sealed and ready for action. It wouldn't help them. She knew it.
    "Have to leave, have to escape," she began to mumble, over and over as she sunk to the ground, curled up and grasped her knees, rocking back and forth as her eyes darted to the surrounding jungle. Her mind collapsed in on itself, locking her into a world of fear and terror.
    "Perimeter! Report, damn you!" bellowed the Lieutenant.
    Yelling wouldn't help. The dead couldn‘t answer the living.
    "Holy sh-"
    "What was that?"
    "Johnson! Behind you!"
    "Sarah! Get do-"
    Around the camp, chaos began to spread. People began to yell and the soft whine-bang of gauss fire began to echo in the night. It wouldn't help. They would come anyway.
    Rough hands grabbed at her and she flailed madly against them, screamed and shrieked, bit and clawed. It was only when her teeth broke on hard armour that she stopped shrieking long enough to hear the voice of the Lieutenant.
    "Sergeant! Sergeant, it's me! Mary!"
    She looked up into the bare face of the Lieutenant, blinked once, twice, and felt some of the fear-fog go. The sounds of the world around her bled out and only the face and eyes of the Lieutenant existed.
    "Mary, you need to listen, you need to focus. Alright?" the face asked.
    But behind him, some of the world was still there. The young Corporal stood, fully suited with his helmet on and his weapon held at the ready, looking towards her and the Lieutenant. Death moved up behind him while more of its kind moved through the trees, the bushes, the shadows themselves.
    The fog-fear gripped her again. She had no time to warn the poor boy, no time to even gasp or widen her eyes. As she watched, frozen and helpless, the death-shadow lashed out, something catching the pale light of the moons. A gout of blood blew from a wound to the Corporal's neck, spraying the ground.
    "My God..."
    It wasn't her voice, she realised. It was the Lieutenant‘s. One of his hands let go of her, fumbled with his side arm. The death-shadow behind him moved, coming closer towards them. The Lieutenant couldn't have seen it, he hadn't turned. He let go of her, took a step back, aimed at something behind her.
    Before he could fire, the death-shadow grabbed him, wrenched the weapon free. It spun him, made him face it. It opened its great mouth of flesh-tearing teeth and shrieked. It was a hiss and a cry of blood-lust, of death itself. It snapped its jaws shut, its mouth clamping on the Lieutenant's face.
    She didn’t scream, didn’t twitch, didn‘t cry out. Not even when he began to flail his arms and legs, his muffled screams echoing from the maw of the creature. She had no feeling left in her body, no emotion left to experience. Instead, she stood, eyes wide, staring as the creature bit clean through the Lieutenant’s face.
    Hot breath caressed her neck and she trembled; the only movement her paralysed body afforded her. A snout came into view, dark fur surrounding animalistic eyes. She stared into them, unable to move, unable to think. As she stared, a terror far greater than what she had felt previously passed through her. The eyes held a dark intelligence; a malevolence so powerful, it seemed to have an inner fire, burning as black as night.
    Her mind jabbered at her, unintelligible nonsense floating through what was left of her psyche. Dimly, she heard the same sound flowing from her mouth, pouring out from between her lips. She tried to take a step back, tried to move, but her body would not work. Something grabbed her by the hair, whipped her head back. A crack echoed through her skull, and stars danced before her eyes.
    The ground moved from its position beneath her and smacked her in the head, driving from her what little sense remained. Her vision danced as a hairy foot-paw thudded on the ground beside her, partially obscuring her view. She looked past it, trying to fight the growing dark at the corners of her vision, to fight the clawing black welling up inside her. She saw, beyond the foot, a face staring back at her. It was bloodless, lifeless, and yet it stared into her soul.
Why? she asked the face. Why didn't you listen to me?